Particularity of Local Immunity in the Nasopharynx

Abstract

Immunological functions of the pharyngeal tonsil, palatine tonsils and blood leucocytes of children undergoing tonsillectomy were evaluated by determining T or B lymphocytes, the response to mitogens, and the cell-mediated immunological responses to tuberculin. In all the test systems used similar results were obtained with cells derived from either the palatine or pharyngeal tonsils. The mean percentage of T lymphocytes was significantly higher in the peripheral blood than in tonsils, but the reverse was true of B lymphocytes. The reaction to PHA was lower in tonsillar cell culture than in blood cell culture, but tonsillar cells reacted better to Con A than blood cells. In lymphocyte transformation tests tonsillar cells reacted to specific antigen (tuberculin) and this reaction was significantly higher than that of the parallelly tested blood lymphocytes. Further, in about 50% of the children tested, tuberculin caused migration inhibition of the mixture containing tonsillar cells and guinea pig peritoneal cells. Surprisingly, nearly identical results were obtained if migration inhibition test was performed with tonsillar cells alone. Consequently, poorly migrating tonsillar cells are nevertheless usable for direct migration inhibition testing.

THE IN VITRO RESPONSE OF LYMPHOCYTES FROM ADENOID VEGETATIONS AND TONSILS TO PPD. INFLUENCE OF AUTOLOGOUS BLOOD MONOCYTES, T LYMPHOCYTES AND UNSEPARATED LYMPHOCYTES

“…Contrary to this Mazuran el al. (6) found higher responses to PPD in TL and to a lesser degree in AVL than in PBL. The patients examined in the latter study were all BCG-vaccinated immediately after birth, and the experimental conditions were different: The cell density and the concentration of PPD were markedly higher, cultures were incubated for 96 hours and the transformation response was evaluated a percentage of blast-like cells in this latter study.…”